Blog Hop Winner and a couple of simple layouts...

First things first.  The Let's Scrap Blog Hop has come to a very successful end.  I am so glad I was able to participate as a host.  Thanks to all of you for visiting and playing along, there were over a thousand cards made by LS members during the month.  Pretty impressive!  Now without further adieu, the randomly chosen is winner of my RAK is Drue Peters!  Drue, get me your address and I will get your goodies out to you ASAP.

Now for some layouts... I have been thinking a lot about why I scrap and what I really what to come out of it lately.  I love playing with paper and glue and creating pretty pages but, I feel a real desire and need to tell the stories of our lives.  As a result, I think I need to simplify and get more pages done with less fuss and pressure to create a masterpiece each time.  I have long admired Cathy Zielske's classic and graphic style but wasn't sure how to make it work for me.  Recently I took her class Ten tips for Type at Big Picture Classes and thoroughly enjoyed it.  I learned some great tips for making my typography more professional and readable.  If you aren't familiar with her check out her blog here, you will be blown away!  So I thought I would share the layout I made for the class assignment.

The layout is a hybrid, the white background and journaling are one piece created in Photoshop, the title strip was also created in Photoshop and added with the photos and patterned paper.  I am really pleased with the result.  Now that I have overcome the learning curve of figuring out how to make the tips work for me, I will definitely do more layouts like this one.  I love the classic clean lines and the ability to add as much journaling as I want.  I believe that BPC may be offering her class again and I would highly recommend it.

Before I go, I will share one more simple layout.  This was created for a sketch challenge on Lily Bee's blog.  I have wanted to scrap this photo of my son but, hesitated because I really didn't have a story to go with it.  I came across this sweet poem and thought it would be perfect.  I love all the white space on this one especially since I adore the wood grain paper.

The poem reads:
With little rosy cheeks, and a cold pink nose, he's all dressed up in his warm winter clothes.
As I watch him laugh and play in the snow outside my door, I thank my God above for this child that I adore.
A blessing from the Father, complete with heaven's glow, I'll always cherish the memories of my angel in the snow.
Kim Heineman

I will be back soon with another simple layout using Cathy's great tips. 

Lets Scrap Leap Blog Hop!

This post will remain here at the top of my blog
for the duration of the Let's Scrap blog hop so please scroll down to see newer posts!

Welcome to the 35th stop on the Lets Scrap LEAP blog hop!

If you came here from Diana Taylor's blog,  then you are in the right place!  If not, head back to Mindi Brown's blog to get started.

Let me introduce myself, I am Jodi Releford and I am really excited to be a blog host this Lets Scrap blog hop!  Lets Scrap is a wonderful group of scrappers and card makers.  It is honestly the friendliest group that I have come across.  So when Mindi asked for hosts, I couldn't respond fast enough!  I guarantee you will love this group of scrappers.  So go ahead and join the group and start playing along with all of us!

I will be the first to admit that card making is not my forte.  For some reason I struggle to put one together, but I also appreciate the opportunity to stretch myself.  Luckily, I was given a great sketch to work with and although it took longer than it should have, I created a card that I really like!  Hurray for me! :)

I was assigned sketch 4-20-11 by the talented Debby to play with. Here it is...

And here is my take on the sketch...

This Christmas, my son's cousins sent him a sweet advent with miniature ornaments and treats inside.  He really enjoyed the surprises he found each day.  I made sure to take a picture of my son with his little Christmas tree covered in his new ornaments to send to them so they could see how much he enjoyed the gift.  So when I saw the sketch I was given I knew it would be perfect.  I took the photo of my son and created a frame with papers from Crate Paper's Snow Day line and some pop dots.  I added some dimensional adhesive and glitter glue to the brown frame to make it shine.  The trees are fussy cut with a bow of floss and the sentiment is stamped on a die-cut.  Love it!   Let me know what you think.  :)

So now it's your turn to play along!  If you need some extra incentive, I am giving a fun RAK package to one randomly drawn participant.  Here's what I'm giving away...

I chose some of my favorite coordinating products to create a fun prize pack.  Included is a Fancy Pants card kit from the Happy Together line (everything you need to make six adorable cards), a package of white Martha Stewart Rub-on borders (they look like lace), an SEI puffy alpha set in a minty green, some fun Lily Bee tulle flowers, and a spool of blue ribbon from American Crafts.  Worth playing for?  I hope so.

So here's the nitty gritty of how to enter my random draw:

1. If you aren't already a member of Lets Scrap head on over to the website http://letsscrap.ning.com/ to join.

2. Become a follower of my blog!!

3. Leave me a comment telling me what your favorite sites are to find inspiration.  Please share!!

And if you would like a second chance to enter my drawing...

1. Make a card from the sketch I have posted and upload it to the gallery at Let’s Scrap. Please tag it as   4-20-11,LEAP35

Please note there are no spaces and LEAP is all upper case letters.

2. Leave a comment here with a link to your card on Let’s Scrap.

The hop ends at 11:59 pm Central Standard time February 29th. So you have plenty of time to visit everyone's blog and enjoy the hop for the whole month.

Thanks for stopping by, I am really looking forward to seeing what you all create. Your next stop is the amazing Sharon Fritchman! Enjoy and if you get lost along the way or have joined the hop in the middle, head to Mindi Brown's blog to get the blog order. You don’t want to miss any of the fun!

2 My Mind's Eye Layouts...

I loved the sketch for this month's MME challenge so I decided to play along.  The theme for the challenge was "you" which was perfect for the page I wanted to do about all the things my son learned last year in Pre-K.  You can see the original sketch here.  For my take on the sketch, I flipped it and used my journaling block in place of the second photo.

I used the Alphabet Soup collection and one October Afternoon tag.  I LOVE this collection and am going to be sad when I use it all up.  In fact, I love it so much that while I had it all out on my desk I created another two page layout using the Let's Scrap sketch from last week.  It was another great sketch from Cheri, check it out here.   And here's my layout...

I just love the colors and patterns in this collection, and the animals are so much fun.  I am now down to scraps and will certainly use each and every one of them.  Thanks for stopping by!

Some Jillibean and Lily Bee sketch fun...

Although you can't tell from the looks of this lonely blog, I have done some scrapping since October.  :)  During the Holiday season, I went back to using my trusty sketches to enable me to get more done in less time.  As you can tell from reading my blog, I like a good sketch.  I am a slow scrapper, I can't bring myself to embrace the more free-form, messy, clustered style that seems to be all the rage right now.  Along with that, I am pretty left brained so when I do scrap from scratch, it usually takes me a long time to get a layout to look the way I see it in my head.  I either LOVE or HATE the layouts I create this way.  Either it really works or it really doesn't.  Sketches are a great place to start and I can actually finish a LO in a day (sometimes) when I use them.  I also really enjoy seeing what others create using the starting place.  So I thought I would share three layouts that I made using sketches over the last couple of months.   

This first one was created for the Lily Bee challenge in November.  You can see the original sketch here.

I loved the cluster of three photos and knew that I had just the right photo to use.  I cropped a 5x7 photo of me and my sisters into three smaller ones.  The colors of our shirts really dictated the color scheme of the LO.  The black and white background really makes the red and blue in the pictures and accents pop.

This next one is based on the latest Jillibean soup sketch by Julie Bonner (Love her!).  Check here to see the original sketch.  I took a few liberties with the sketch and used a few more circles to mimic wheels in my traveling theme.  I have had these photos (taken by a ride a Chuck E. Cheese) for a long time and have wondered what to do with them.  They are not the best quality, but my little guy is so cute with his pal, this sketch was just right for them. 

Next, we have an oldie.  I created this LO with a sketch from My Minds Eye from way back in November.  The challenge was to use the sketch found here and you had to include brown in some way.  I use brown all the time so that was easy.  Of course, then I didn't get around to posting it in time.  Does that happen to anyone else, or is it just me?    Anyway I like the resulting LO of my son and his cousin.

That's all for today, I'll be back tomorrow to start the Let's Scrap blog hop.  Make sure to check it out, there will be 50 ladies involved.  Yes you read that correctly 50 blogs to hop to and great inspiration and prizes on each.  You will have the whole month of February to play along so you should have plenty of time to visit everyone.  See you then!